My Family

Tuesday, 27 May 2014

Days Out: Exploring the great Outdoors at CONKERS.

Exploring the great Outdoors at CONKERS.

Bank Holidays equal Family Fun Days here in the Mummy Of 3 Diaries household. We like to use these days to enjoy a day of fun together doing something completely new. Yesterday we decided to head to CONKERS in Leicester to have an outdoor adventure.

With the promise of 120 acres of forest to explore and huge indoor & outdoor play areas to be utilised we were looking forward to a fantastic family day out.

Our family ticket for two adults and two children cost us £29.95 for entry which is about the normal price we would pay for a place like this. This was our first time visiting so we were all very excited and eager to try out as much as we could in our day.

We rode the beautiful Conkerchoo train which linked the Discovery centre to the Waterside Centre. The two are not that far apart really, we could have walked but why walk when you can ride on a train! The train runs every 10 minutes continuously throughout the day, those 10 minutes were definitely worth the wait as the kids loved the train ride through the trees and the tunnels. We rode the train twice in total, it was lots of Choo-Tastic fun.

I'd heard lots about their well known 450 metre Barefoot Walk before we went so I was very keen to give it a go. Lily was on my side and couldn't wait to try it out whereas Daddy and Ryan were being spoilt sports and just wanted to watch, silly boys. Lily and I took off our shoes and socks and rolled up our trouser legs ready to for trail. The water was freezing, the mud was all squishy and the rocks were slippery but the experience overall was amazing. We'd never done anything like this before so it felt great to try something new. Who needs a foot massage when you can do the CONKERS Barefoot Walk and feel the same benefits.

One of the things I loved about CONKERS is the mixture of things there was available to do. We go to place similar to this often and tend to find everything is aimed at the children and us adults get forgotten about well not here we didn't! At CONKERS they have an amazing 18 stage assault course for the teenages and the adults in the groups. There was obstacles to climb over, planks to go under, nets to climb and nets to get through. Some of the obstacles were very high and some were very steep but all of them were so much fun!

One of the things to do was a zip wire which looked fantastic, Daddy, Ryan and Lily all had several goes on it and loved every minute! The course was very quiet when we were on it as it was raining slightly but a bit of rain wasn't going to stop us.

Although it rained on and off for most of our day we were determined to carry on and enjoy ourselves. There were free Pony rides which my two both loved and a huge outdoor play area that had everything a child could wish for. Towers with slides, swings and seesaws. Obstacle courses, climbing frames and so much more.

When the rain got a bit heavy we headed indoors to check out their Enchanted Forest where children can lose themselves in a tree top adventure up to 6 metres high. It was quite dark in there but wow was it awesome! There was tunnels and slides, nets and holes everywhere. At one point I lost sight of my two and headed in for myself to find them. Lets just say Mummy got a little stuck in some places and got lost herself. I'd never felt so silly in all my life but I did have to laugh when I eventually found my way out to be greeted by two laughing children. Although the area was big enough for adults to go in, I think next time I'll just leave them to it.

There was plenty of cafes to eat at CONKERS and they even had an outdoor BBQ which smelt amazing but we brought our own picnic which we sat at an outside picnic table to eat. It was actually really nice as the geese and their babies joined us too.

We stayed at CONKERS for around 5 hours in total before heading home for the night. You always know when your children have had a good day when you see this in the back seat.

CONKERS was an amazing day out and we loved every minute. It was great to spend the day enjoying the great outdoors and having a real family adventure. We would definately recomend to it all our friends and will be going back again this summer.

Disclosure: We went to CONKERS because we wanted to, not because someone asked us to. I wrote this post to simply share our experience with you because we enjoyed it so much.